Turning carbon dioxide, the main culprit behind global warming, into a useful resource... University of Seoul (UOS) uncovers principle for dramatically improving catalyst efficiency

[Financial News] A team of Korean researchers has identified a catalyst design principle that could greatly improve the efficiency of “carbon resource utilization” technology, which turns carbon dioxide—the main culprit among greenhouse gases—into useful chemicals needed by industry. The findings are expected to provide an important technological foundation for accelerating eco-friendly chemical processes and the commercialization of carbon-neutral technologies.
The University of Seoul said on the 23rd that a research team led by Professor Lee Hyo-seon of its Department of Materials Science and Engineering, together with Professor Kim Hyeon-sik and a team led by Professor Shin Hye-young of Kyung Hee University, had identified how the “dimensional structure of oxide supports” affects the performance of carbon dioxide reduction catalysts.
Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction technology converts carbon dioxide from the air or industrial sites into valuable substances such as carbon monoxide. However, technical limitations have made it difficult to selectively produce only the desired substances with high efficiency during the reaction.
The team focused on the three-dimensional form of the “oxide support” that holds up the catalyst. They deposited gold nanoparticles on perovskite oxides with either a 2D structure, shaped like a flat, thin plate, or a three-dimensional 3D structure, and compared their performance.
The experiments showed that catalysts using 2D-structured oxides had much higher selectivity for producing carbon monoxide and greater reaction efficiency than those using 3D structures. This is because the thin, plate-like 2D oxide helps electrons move more readily when paired with gold nanoparticles, creating a stable environment that facilitates the conversion of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide.
Until now, catalyst supports had been considered merely platforms for holding catalyst particles in place. This study, however, demonstrated that changing the support’s shape and dimensionality alone can directly control the performance of the catalyst as a whole.
Professor Lee Hyo-seon of UOS said the study would offer a new design direction for developing a range of eco-friendly electrochemical catalysts, including those used in carbon dioxide conversion technology.
The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), and its findings were published in Small, an international journal in the field of nanoscience.  

[email protected] Man-ki Kim Reporter